


Adamant

by ShadowHeartofFaith



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Near Death Experiences, Romance, Surprise Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 09:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13544973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowHeartofFaith/pseuds/ShadowHeartofFaith
Summary: “I think more than a few of us saw the way he kissed you at Adamant”, Varric presses suggestively. “It was poetic. And it couldn’t have been the first time.”A small companion piece to my fic Dusk til Dawn.Here is the kiss that everyone keeps referencing just after Elodie returns from the Fade at Adamant Fortress.





	Adamant

_M_ _aker…Maker, no. Please, no._

            Cullen watches as the bridge collapses, stones and rubble falling off the edge of the world and down into nothingness. And amid the plummeting debris, the Inquisitor.

             _Elodie._

            His throat tightens until he feels like he’s choking.

            The bright flare of green catches his attention and sends him running as close to the edge as he dares.

            The stench of ozone and fear fills his nostrils and she’s… _gone._

            There’s nothing there…

            “Take the fortress!” he barks as he hefts his sword up. “For your lives, for the Inquisition!”

            Heavy wingbeats overhead draw his eyes up to the darkening sky as Corypheus’s archdemon flees the battlefield.

            Adamant is a mess of mage fire and screaming and he is reminded of Kirkwall as he strides through a courtyard of corpses. Inquisition and Warden alike.          

            Demon ichor stains his blade and his armour and he is so very tired.

            But a new rage bubbles up inside of him alongside his worry for the Lady Inquisitor and he finds himself cutting through anything that dares stray into his path. It could have been minutes, maybe hours, before one of the scout’s approaches him.

            “We’ve secured the fortress, Commander. Shall we fly our colors?”

            Cullen gives a curt nod, sheathing his sword.

            “Where is Erimond?” he growls.

            The scout takes a hesitant step back. “We’ve him contained, ser. He was rendered unconscious during the fight.”

            Cullen stalks further into the heart of Adamant.

            “Ser.”

            “What?”

            “I think it wise to tell you, ser, the remaining Grey Wardens did help us fight the demons. I think the Inquisitor should like to know”, the scout says, voice wavering slightly.

            “Then let us hope this was not all for nothing.”

            Her companions are standing around a cluster of tents.

            Blackwall straightens at his approach. “Where is the Inquisitor?”

            Cullen’s mouth goes dry. He can’t imagine it. He can’t think of it. What if she-?

            “Falling. Everything is black. I don’t want to die. Not without telling him. He won’t understand the fear. It hurts, it hurts. I can’t remember-“

            “Cole”, Varric says gently, pulling the boy from Cullen’s side.

            “A rift”, Cole says. “She opened a rift. They’re-“

            Sera’s face drains of color. “Oh, piss. _No, no, no.”_

            “I don’t understand”, Blackwall admits. “What happened?”

            Cullen wets his lips. “The bridge collapsed. She-“

            “They’re in the Fade”, Cole says in wonder, face hidden beneath the wide brim of his hat.

            “And Hawke? Stroud?” Varric presses insistently.

            “They’ve not been found”, Cullen replies past the lead anchor lodged in his throat.

            Bull meets Cullen’s anxious eyes. “Dorian is with her.”

            Cullen nods his head, unable to speak.

            Bull is also waiting on someone he cares about…his stomach is in ropes.

            “They’ll find a way”, Bull says firmly. “They will.”

            Cullen’s vision swims with colors that are too bright and too close and his blood roars in his ears.

             _I don’t want to die. Not without telling him-_

            “Excuse me”, he chokes out.

            She’d kissed him once. Months ago.

            And yet he was terrified of never seeing her again. Not because she led the Inquisition, not because she was the supposed Herald of Andraste, but because he-

            He chokes on that thought.

            She would never sit across from him, worrying her lip while he taught her to play chess. She would never rebuff his plans in the War Room. She would-

            She _would_ find a way. She had to.

            There is still so much to do.

            He still has so much to tell her.

           Cullen lowers himself down onto an overturned pillar, resting his head in his hands, and he pictures her so clearly in his mind’s eye that his chest aches with the weight of a hundred possibilities.

           A sharp crack and a chorus of shouts draw him from his thoughts.

          “Inquisitor!” someone shouts and he’s running through the encampment.

          Spattered with blood, she steps from the rift, her usually-bright eyes hard and haunted.

         With a single jerk of her hand, the rift slams shut behind her in a spray of green sparks that illuminate her face and accentuate the firm set of her jaw. Her red hair is a tangle of snarls that haloes her features and she has never looked more beautiful to him than she does in this moment.

         Stroud presses through the gathering throng, Grey Wardens and Inquisition soldiers parting to let him through. The man is limping and clutching tightly to his left arm.

        “With the Nightmare banished, Corypheus lost both his Warden mages and his demon army, thanks to you, Inquisitor.”

        Elodie swallows hard. “It wasn’t just me.”

        “But in the stories your soldiers will tell, their Inquisitor broke the spell with the Maker’s blessing”, Stroud says lowly and his words are nearly lost in the confused din surrounding them.

        “There will be time for that later”, she replies.

        Varric shoulders his way toward her, eyes searching. “Where’s Hawke?”

        Elodie’s eyes are swimming with tears when she looks back at her friend. “He…he saved us. All of us. Varric-“

       The dwarf chokes and bows his head. “Well…shit…”

       “Varric”, Cassandra begins, reaching out to him as he passes. “Varric, I’m-“

       Cullen watches as the rogue disappears into the fortress, fighting back tears.

       Dorian is leaning heavily against Bull and Solas is standing at the Inquisitor’s side.

       And they’re back. They’re alive.

       “Inquisitor”, he finally speaks up. “The archdemon fled the field once you disappeared. The Venatori magister is unconscious but alive.”

       Elodie nods, taking in his recount of the events transpiring in her absence.

       “As for the Wardens, those who weren’t corrupted helped us fight off the remaining demons in your absence.”

       Elodie steels herself as if she’s preparing for a new battle and he aches for her.

       “We’ve struck a blow against Corypheus and an agent of the Blight. Now we will rebuild. Warden Stroud, the proud history of the Grey Wardens now falls to you. Restore your Order and join us as members of the Inquisition.”

       Stroud’s mouth falls open in shock. “My lady, we do not deserve the honor.”

       “This is war”, she reminds him. “Help us win it. There will be plenty of demons to fight in the coming months. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

       Stroud bows his head. “You have our thanks, my Lady Inquisitor. We will not fail you.”

       Solas makes a disgruntled noise behind Elodie that she seems to pretend not to hear.

       “Inquisitor-“

       “Lady Lavellan-“

       She holds up a hand, drawn and exhausted. And in this moment she is not the Inquisitor or the Herald of Andraste. She is every inch a tired woman, worn from battle and sacrifice.

      “It’s been settled”, she says firmly. “Now, if you’ll please excuse me.”

      He watches as Bull and Blackwall flank her so she can march back to the tents uninterrupted.

 _“I’ve met good people here”,_ she had told him once with a wistful smile.

      Watching as her friends tend to her now, he is grateful for their presence at her side. His counsel could only get her so far, it was the strength and loyalty of her companions that truly held her up in battle.

     Solas steps up beside him, holding his silence for a long moment.

     Cullen slumps forward, one hand wrapping around the pommel of his sword.

      “It will take time”, the apostate finally says. “She will need to reconcile everything that she has seen and endured.”

      “What makes you-“

      Solas offers a wry smile. “I have seen what it is like to be loved by the lady Lavellan. And her affections have clearly come to rest with you.”

      Cullen’s tongue feels thick and fuzzy in his mouth and he isn’t sure how he feels about Solas _,_  of all people, knowing how Elodie may or may not feel about him.

      “Dareth shiral, Commander.”

      The hours that follow the Inquisitor’s return are a flurry of reports and body counts and healers’ tents. The headache he has developed is beginning to make his eyes blur and ache in his skull.

     And Elodie is nowhere to be found.

     He sits before a fire, ripping off his gloves to massage away the pounding pressure building in his temples.

     “I think you might need this more than me.”

     He looks up and Elodie stands over him, holding out an elfroot tonic.

     Her face has been scrubbed clean of soot and blood, the silver branches of her vallaslin clearly visible. She has foregone her armour in place of her soft belted tunic and leggings and-

     He surges to his feet, taking her face between his hands.

     The bottle of tonic smashes to the ground when Cullen crushes his lips to hers.

     She’s still beneath him for a moment as she processes what’s happening and then her arms wind around his neck and she’s pressing as close to him as she can with his damned breastplate in the way.

     His lips are desperate as he drinks from her.

 _I missed you,_  he says.  _I was so worried about you. I thought I may never see you again. I lo-_

     Her lips part and her tongue slides languidly against his and he is undone. He moans into her mouth, one hand tangling into the length of her thick tresses, keeping her face close to his.

     He wants her closer.

     He needs more of her in every way possible.

     The crippling need to assure himself that she truly stands alive and whole before him dwarfs every other feeling welling up inside of him.

_Elodie, Elodie, Elodie._

     He could die happily with her lips pressed to his, her smell dizzying him.

     Lavender and elfroot and sap.

     A series of high pitched whistles and catcalls wrench them apart and Elodie’s hazel eyes widen when she takes him in, two fingers pressing against her lower lip.

    Her lips are red and kiss-swollen, her face flushed, her chest heaving.

    Something deep down inside of him that has no sense tells him to haul her back to him and devour her.

    But he is unsure and she is so precious-

    He rubs anxiously at the back of his neck. “I’m sorry…that was, uh… _Maker,_  I’m sorry.”

    She shakes her head once, turning her eyes to the ground. “Cullen, I-“

    “I’ll just…I’ll leave you to, uh, your…duties”, he trails off awkwardly. “Inquisitor.”

    He can feel her eyes boring into the back of his head as he retreats and he curses his foolishness. The phantom feeling over her lips haunts him the entire way to his tent and that night he dreams of the first time she’d kissed him all those months ago in the gardens in Skyhold.

     _“I have seen what it is like to be loved by the lady Lavellan. And her affections have clearly come to rest with you.”_

     He wonders fleetingly what that means before drifting off to sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading my little prequel piece.  
> I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Come say hi on Tumblr @shadowheartoffaith


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